In ressponse to that decision, the UK Intellectual Property Office ("Office") issued an official practice note on the way patent examiners assess whether inventions are for patentable subject matter. This notice supersedes the following Practice Notices:

Other Practice Notices on the question of patentable subject matter still stand save as follows:

Patentability of games (25 November 2005): Paragraph 4 is superseded by the present Notice. The rest of this Notice, which explained the comptroller would no longer rely on the Official Ruling 1926(A), still stands.

Patent applications relating to methods of doing business (24 November 2004): This said the Office would bring appropriate cases to a hearing at an earlier stage and issue abbreviated decisions. This still stands, and indeed may become even more relevant now that Aerotel/Macrossan has simplified the approach.

A new assessment by the UKIPO now also gives some examples of how the Office sees the test being applied in practice. The examples chosen are patent applications that were refused by hearing officers earlier this year using the old tests. According to the Office, "In every case the new test appears to come to the same conclusion, thus confirming the Court’s view that the new test is consistent with previous decisions of the Court."